WD Blue SN550 or Intel 665P ?

[Solid State Soul ( SSS )]

Hi there, i'v been thinking about buying an new value NVMe storage and my research lead me to both the wd blue sn 550 and the intel 665p, both scored great reviews so i decided to share this with you guys to recommend which one to pick, am sure i'll be happy with either of them, but i wanted to have fun discussing it here so why not ?

Western Digital WD Blue SN550 NVMe M.2 2280 1TB SSD - Newegg.com

Buy Western Digital WD Blue SN550 NVMe M.2 2280 1TB PCI-Express 3.0 x4 3D NAND Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) WDS100T2B0C with fast shipping and top-rated customer service. Once you know, you Newegg!

www.newegg.com

or

Intel 665p Series M.2 2280 1TB PCIe Internal SSD - Newegg.com

Buy Intel 665p Series M.2 2280 1TB PCIe NVMe 3.0 x4 3D3, QLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) SSDPEKNW010T9X1 with fast shipping and top-rated customer service. Once you know, you Newegg!

www.newegg.com

i'll be using this as my main drive for OS and games

 

[DeathtoGnomes]

Are these the ONLY two choices? Have you read reviews for either of them?

 

[tabascosauz]

To stand a chance against the SN550 the 665p needs to be more than just $5 cheaper...there's no contest here. Why save just $5 to get the poor consistency and endurance of QLC?

You're going to get better consistency out of the SN550, DRAMless or not. That's why it's been one of the top recommendations for DRAMless drives in the past little while.

Quite frankly even the SN550 had better be a fair bit cheaper than some of the standard DRAM recommendations like the SX8200 in order to be a frontrunner if I was looking for another SSD.

 

[Solid State Soul ( SSS )]

Are these the ONLY two choices? Have you read reviews for either of them?

They are the top rated value NVMe i could find, so for me yes

To stand a chance against the SN550 the 665p needs to be more than just $5 cheaper...there's no contest here. Why save just $5 to get the poor consistency and endurance of QLC?

You're going to get better consistency out of the SN550, DRAMless or not. That's why it's been one of the top recommendations for DRAMless drives in the past little while.

Quite frankly even the SN550 had better be a fair bit cheaper than some of the standard DRAM recommendations like the SX8200 in order to be a frontrunner if I was looking for another SSD.

Do DMRless SSDs effect gaming performance in a negative way ?

 

[tabascosauz]

Do DMRless SSDs effect gaming performance in a negative way ?

Not in any way that you'll notice. More noticeable if you do a lot of writes all the time, which isn't something that games do.

If you're only looking to spend $100 or less right now then that's pretty much the extent of your options. Crucial has a P2 that is currently very similar to the SN550, but have cautioned that they may switch to QLC in the future, which would make it a shittier version of the 665p instead. So you don't have much that's better than the SN550.

 

[newtekie1]

IMO, there isn't much point in getting a "value" NVMe SSD when the performance ones are so close in price. I mean a WD SN550 is $100, an SX8200 Pro is $120. Why save the $20 and skimp on performance on something that could be a long term investment. I mean, I could understand if it was double the price, but we're talking 20 bucks here.

 

[DeathtoGnomes]

I'm sorry I dont see QLC drives as top of the line or top rated.

 

[Palladium]

SN550 in a heartbeat between those two.

QLC is anti-consumer cancer. The less this garbage sells, the better for all of us.

 

[Solid State Soul ( SSS )]

I'm sorry I dont see QLC drives as top of the line or top rated.

SN550 in a heartbeat between those two.

QLC is anti-consumer cancer. The less this garbage sells, the better for all of us.

The Intel 660p scored great user reviews sold well, nobody complained, years later Intel released a newer 665p again scored great user reviews, sold well, nobody complained, It even has 300TBW endurance on the 1tb model.

Linus from LTT did a "herd mentality PC" where he builds a PC from the most selected pc parts on Newegg, the Intel 660p was there and it was good.

Am not trying to prove anyones wrong here just i think the whole QLC debate is maybe overblown out of proportion

 

[TheLostSwede]

I suggest you have a look here, the SN550 is in there too.

Intel SSD 665p M.2 NVMe SSD Review: QLC Flash Refined

Intel kicks QLC up a notch with more performance and 50% more endurance

www.tomshardware.com

What I don't understand is why you would get a QLC drive over a 3D TLC drive with overall better performance. The only downside of the SN550 vs the 665p is that it has a smaller SLC cache, so if you write a lot of data, the drive is going to slow down quicker, but once you hit that slower speed, the SN550 is faster, as QLC is super slow to direct writes to. Then again, most people don't wrote 100GB+ all in one go to a drive. Even so, there's zero benefit to go with QLC over 3D TLC. I mean, considering the 665p has DRAM cache and it's still slower than the SN550 in most tests, should tell you something, as the SN550 is DRAM less in a traditional sense, even though it has something like an 8MB cache built in to the controller.

Considering there's no cost difference, QLC just doesn't make sense. If you could pick up a drive twice the size compared to a 3D TLC drive, then maybe, but that's not the case.
Also, one reason why people aren't complaining is that most people don't write a lot of data to their drives on a daily basis, but if SD cards are anything to go by, more modern QLC based SD cards burn out a lot quicker than older TLC based ones. However, again, most people wouldn't notice, as they don't write enough data to their storage devices and no-one tells you what kind of flash you get in your SD cards.

Say you get the 1TB 665p, which has a TBW of 300GB, even if you write ~85GB of data a day, that drive will last you almost 10 years before the NAND fails. Most people don't write that much data a week to their drives. So yes, the QLC debate might be overblown when it comes to NAND life span, but not when it comes to performance once you run out of SLC cache and not on smaller drives or SD cards.

Regardless, I wouldn't buy a QLC drive, I nearly go a 665p, but decided to pay a little bit more for a drive that performs much better under all circumstances.

 

[elghinnarisa]

Between those two? SN550
If you could pick around that budget, XPG SX8200 pro, which is 119 on newegg for 1TB.

The issue with QLC is the price. It's well known QLC doesn't perform as well. Doesn't mean its particularly "bad" in that sense. It's just not worth paying the same price for something that performs worse, now is it?
Now if QLC was substantially cheaper, then it would be a totally different thing.
If you could get a QLC based drive for 30% less than a TLC, then you got yourself a argument. But at the same price point? not so much. Your just paying the same amount of money for something that is worse. Doesn't mean your gonna notice a difference depending on how you use your computer, but why buy something worse for the same price either way?

 

[dirtyferret]

The SN550 is probably the best nvme ssd out there that is typically at or under $100.

 

[Solid State Soul ( SSS )]

Thanks a lot for the replies everyone, I'll be sure to pick the SN550